Monday, November 29, 2010

Sorry Prof. Hunter, but Anglicanism is not dying

Prof. Hunter, a convert to Catholicism, clearly has little love for the Anglican Church. But his own disappointments with the church that he fled may be clouding his vision.

He notes that in Britain there are already more people worshiping in mosques than in the Church of England. He then goes on to say how Anglicanism has drifted from its roots to something lacking definition.

“Whether one examines liturgy, doctrine, or the trendy issues like women bishops and homosexual marriages, the reality is that the contemporary Anglican Church bears hardly any resemblance to the spirit of the 39 Articles of Religion that once defined this historic institution.”

He mentions the recent statement by five Church of England bishops who said they were heading to the Roman Catholic Church because they were “distressed by developments in faith and order in Anglicanism which we believe to be incompatible with the historic vocation of Anglicanism and the tradition of the Church for 2,000 years.”

Prof. Hunter may be right about the Anglican Church in Britain today. But there is a problem if his readers confuse what is going on in Britain — or Canada or the United States, for that matter — with the reality of worldwide Anglicanism.